The Reason God Hasn't Fixed You Yet

Excerpt from A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

Donald Miller

Chapter 29 “The Reason Why God Hasn’t Fixed You Yet” has to be my favorite chapter from the book. He is so poetic with his writing. I couldn’t have said it any better.

I’m convinced that the most fantastical moment in story, the point when all the tension is finally relieved, doesn’t actually happen in real life. And I mean that seriously. I’ve thought about it fifty different ways, but I can’t figure out how a human life actually climaxes so that everything on the other side of a particular moment is made to be okay. It happens all the time in movies and books, but it won’t happen to me- and I’m sorry to say, it won’t happen.

Maybe the reason we like stories so much is because they deliver wish fulfillment. Maybe we sit in the dark and shovel sugar into our mouths because in so many stories everything is made right, and we secretly long for that ourselves.

Regardless how passionate the utopianists are, I simply don’t believe utopia is going to happen. I don’t believe we are going to be rescued. I don’t believe an act of man will make things on earth perfect, and I don’t believe God will intervene before I die, or for that matter before you die. I believe, indeed we will go on longing for a resolution that will not come, not within life we know it, anyway.

If you think about it, an enormous amount of damage is created by the myth of utopia. There is an intrinsic feeling in nearly every person that your life could be perfect if you only had such-and-such a car or such-and-such a spouse or such-and-such a job. We believe we will be made whole by our accomplishments, our possessions, or our social status. It’s written in the fabric of our DNA that life used to be beautiful and now it isn’t, and if only this and if only that, it would be beautiful again.

All of this may sound depressing to you, but I don’t mean it to be. I’ve lived some good stories that have improved the quality of my life. But I’ve also let go of the idea things will ever be perfect, at least while I’m walking around on this planet. I’m trying to be more Danish, I guess. When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. And when you stop expecting material possessions to complete you, you’d be surprised at how much pleasure you get in material possessions. And when you stop expecting God to end all your troubles, you’d be surprised how much you like spending time with God.

What I love about the true gospel of Jesus, though, is that it offers hope. Paul has hope that our souls will be made complete. It will happen in heaven, where there will be a wedding and a feast. I wonder if that’s why so many happy stories end in weddings and feasts. Paul says Jesus is the hope that will not disappoint. I find that comforting.